FORT COLLINS - Young voters are expected to play a major role in deciding this year's presidential election.
DECISION 2012 ELECTION COVERAGE
They are especially important in swing states like Colorado.
By and large, college students say their peers are not very likely to show up to vote this November.
"None of my friends," Colorado State University student Jackson Shoaff-Bembry said. "I'm pretty sure half of them don't even know when the election is."
Sophomore William Radigan agreed, "Because there's a lot of apathy in this country just for voting in general."
"Most people don't think it'll affect them in any way," student Bik Bajwa added.
That thought is most concerning to Robert Duffy, who heads the CSU political science department.
"Whether or not you think they affect your life, they do," Duffy said about elections. "Decisions that government makes about healthcare policy, or taxes, or decisions about whether to go to war or not."
Because student voters can often be a fickle demographic, you can expect to see President Barack Obama in future months back on Colorado campuses.
In 2008, he held a massive rally at the Oval, a large open space on the CSU campus.
Those types of gatherings are more than big TV events, they're about getting individual students to show up to the polls.
"People who have been asked to vote are more likely to vote than people who haven't been asked," Duffy explained.
The president took two-thirds of the youth vote last time, but it may be harder to motivate students to vote for him again.
"I had been thinking about it and I think I still will [vote for the president,]" Shoaff-Bembry said. "You know he promised a lot of things that he didn't come through on."
The more students "think about it," the more chance for the eventual Republican nominee to make gains in the youth vote.
They have supporters on campuses already.
Radigan told us he plans to vote for whomever the Republicans nominate.
Whatever the campaigns do to target students, Duffy usually does his part by asking one simple question.
"These are decisions that are made that affect your life. Do you want to be making them or do you want somebody else to be making them?" he said.
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